No poet could ever suffer from writer’s block when she has access to any of Diane Lockward’s phenomenal craft books. Now she has published her fourth, The Strategic Poet. The book is a #1 New Release in Poetry Writing Reference on Amazon. Click on the following image to find the book.
The back of the book lists the poets whose work appears inside as either prompt poems or sample poems.
One of my poems is featured in the book. It’s a formal poem, a triolet, but rather than being a single triolet, I made it a triple!
The description in the book of a triolet:
I accepted the challenge to use the form for a significant topic as I based the poem on a cat hoarding situation we had in Phoenix last year where 133 cats were found in one apartment lived in by a couple with children. Here is the very beginning of the poem. To read the entire poem you would need to purchase Lockward’s book.
Although I haven’t mentioned my arty junk journals in awhile (other than using supplies for my cat nicho), I am still working on them. Here’s the latest completed double page where I jumped all in with purple.
Speaking of my cat nicho, look who decided to check it out from behind. Tiger Queenie Princess Mimi Josefina. I don’t know if she realizes that I made it for the cats or not, but she never goes in my study and then yesterday she did, only to investigate the nicho.
Hummingbirds make such wonderful mothers. Six years ago, the hummingbird who raised two nests right outside my door was a good example. When one of her babies turned out to find it more difficult to learn to fly, she spent hours one afternoon patiently teaching the little one. The green hummingbird raising her babies in our oleander right now is another good example. First, before she ever laid her eggs, she completely moved her nest from the windchime/mobile to the oleander tree when she realized the first place was not safe. Now we’ve noticed that because the sun beats relentlessly on the babies in the mornings, she sits on them for protection even though they are now big kids. We expect them to fly away any day now. Here she is shielding them from the sun.
Last week I told you that Kana was enjoying a manuscript box, but Tiger would lie down in it when Kana wasn’t there.
I think I forgot to mention that my daughter gave me Storyworth for Mother’s Day. I had never heard of it before. Every week for a year I get a story prompt mailed to me. The idea is these stories are all about my life. As soon as I email one back, my kids get the story dumped in their inboxes. I am allowed to include photos if I like. And if I hit send and regret something I can easily edit it. At the end of the year, the kids will get books of “the story of my life.” Why is this different from creative nonfiction and memoir writing? These stories are geared for my kids and (hopefully someday) their kids. Some of the stories are already part of family legend, but now they will be written down in a permanent form. If I don’t like a particular prompt, I can change it out, but so far each one (I’ve done four) have been fruitful lines of enquiry ;). I’ve written about my first memory, most memorable birthday, favorite trip, and a time when I was brave. I’m not saying I wouldn’t share any of these on this blog, but not today, folks.
It’s a genius idea that I wish I had thought of before these people did hah. The reason it’s genius is that it’s got to be a money maker as it’s pricey. But I kind of think it’s worth it because who does this anyway? And keeps it up for a year? You could do this completely on your own. But will your loved ones keep writing those stories every week? They will if they know you paid for the subscription!
Following a writing prompt requiring the poet to pull words from a published book, I ended up with this poem. I wish I could remember which prompt I used–and how much I varied or not from it, but it was a couple of months ago. And these months have been full of work stress, so my memory looks moth-eaten.
The book I used was Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, a popular “writing text.” The subtitle is “Some Instructions on Writing and Life,” and I would say that the instructions are more on point for life–and maybe that’s why it is so popular!
WHAT TO NAME A CAT
(in the voice of Anne Lamott)
Find God
Propmaster
On Loan
Crazy Clocks
Special Effects
This Effect
Ring True
One Door Shut
R&B
Therapy
God’s Home
Samuel Beckett
Dirty Feet
Tiny Word
Redemption
One Leaf
Wordsworth
Rumi
Personal Drama
Delusion
Gorgeous
Pure Radiance
Way to the Truth
Present Moment
Home
Each one of these names resonates for me with what cats mean to me. Gosh, that sounds like an essay assignment for fifth grade. A fun assignment!
Maybe you can find a name for your next cat from my list haha.
I’ll tell you what. I’ll post a picture of my dearest love from this week, and you can guess what’s been going on.
That’s right: I’ve been sick for a week! Allergy season is horrific in Arizona right now what with the palo verdes in full bloom, so when the illness began I thought it was the allergy symptoms I had already been having. But NO. Turns out allergy morphed right into virus.
I am proud to say that I turned out some sort of poem draft every day, but I am pretty sure they are mainly crap. I didn’t try to clean them up because I knew that was the best way to kill them. If I leave them in this half-awake state, maybe I can do something with them later.
Yesterday, NaPoWriMo.net posted notes from Wesley McNair: On Craft. There’s some excellent ones in there. If you write or want to write poetry, I would recommend reading this short piece. The very last line applies to workshopping poetry, but you can apply it to writing fiction or creative nonfiction, too. He says, “No good poem was ever written by a committee.” Haha, I take it to mean to get advice from others as needed, but don’t let their voices take over the poem.
Another note refers to something I mentioned above.
Contrary to the notion of the schoolroom, your slow-witted self is your smart self because true intelligence is not in quickness. Work slowly as you make your poem, so as not to give in to the quick self.
If I rushed to finish up those poems in my ill state, they would be ruined. I will let them slowly work their way into life.
If you are not a poet and do not write poetry, but are a prose writer, I have a way for you to honor poetry month, if you’re game. Try a prose poem. If it makes you happy, think of it as a form of flash nonfiction. Actually, prose poems are claimed by both genres, so there ya go. When you write a prose poem, format it in a block so that both left and right are justified (although you can’t keep that format on WordPress). Just write your prose in this block shape and then to revise get rid of things that sound too prosaic–too much explanation, too many extra words, and try to heighten the images and the language a bit. Try it without dialogue. And try it in present tense. Read the sample prose poem first. OK, ready, set, GO.
Sample Prose Poem
Gary Young
I discovered a journal in the children’s ward, and read, I’m a mother, my little boy has cancer. Further on, a girl has written, this is my nineteenth operation. She says, sometimes it’s easier to write than to talk, and I’m so afraid. She’s offered me a page in the book. My son is sleeping in the room next door. This afternoon, I held my whole weight to his body while a doctor drove needles deep into his leg. My son screamed, Daddy, they’re hurting me, don’t let them hurt me, make them stop. I want to write, how brave you are, but I need a little courage of my own, so I write, forgive me, I know I let them hurt you, please don’t worry. If I have to, I can do it again.
The cats are well. Perry was actually quiet and rested for much of the week. It’s as if he knew Mommy didn’t feel well enough for his usual antics.
I guess there is no half time, no break, just keep going through the whole 30 days without drawing a deep breath. Shallow rapid breathing. I’ve written 15 poems in 15 days (actually in 16 days because I started a day early, but somehow I lost a day–or maybe lost a poem–and am now where I am supposed to be: 15 for 15). Can’t write long here as I have another to write today!
This month has been much sloppier than when I did the Tupelo 30/30. I am happy just to get a crummy rough draft done and move on to the rest of my day. I don’t have time to take a break and revise, not to mention that daily blog posting I did in September 2015!
So I don’t really know what I will end up with. More than zero, I guess. Some days have been awful. I had to travel to California for work last week, so there were 2.5 days of hours and hours of travel (not just the getting there and back, but the travel within California for work). Do you know how hard it is to find that poetry zone in my head when the gardener is playing oldies (loud) and chomping gum (even louder)? He also keeps up a running commentary on every driver, every traffic jam, every building site, in short, whatever passes by on the road. I can only tell him to shut up so much as he is the one who is driving in the hideous traffic. I can no longer tolerate the sound of the traffic whooshing around me either. It’s gotten so bad that it permeates my innards all way to the tips of my soul.
Still, I came up with something. One day I was “blessed” with seeing two different birds of prey at different points in the trip, each carrying its squirming meal. That was a poetic coincidence. One morning I woke up dreaming about poetry.
I’m getting tired pushing myself this hard to crank out the poems, but in two weeks it will end, and I can go back to being regular-tired instead of super-tired.
Thought I’d mention that I’ve mainly been using the NaPoWriMo.net prompts. And that anthology I am creating over at poets.org? I am still working on it, but am pretty frustrated because a lot of my favorite poems are not on their site and you have to use the poems on their site. They don’t have some of the best poems of the poets writing past 1970.
Have you written daily poems? Any poems? Prose? Blog posts? Writing for work?
If you have, go pet a cat or dog as a reward. That’s what I plan to do!
